Big 5 beautiful star t'meritume. Unputdownable (as I finished it in a day). Sad. The whole World War II is sad tbh. I live in the 1940s tbh. A must read for all.

It's hard to know how to rate this book. It's incredibly graphic so that I couldn't stomach too much at a time. The horrors of the Holocaust are immense and so brutal. But at the same time, we need to know these things. We need to acknowledge the violent brutality that Jews endured. We need to weep and mourn. And we need to be reminded of the past so that it can shape our present and our future to be better, to love and not hate, to accept and not condemn, to see the value and intrinsic worth of each human being no matter their skin color or societal or educational background or nationality or religion.

A valuable first-hand account of Warsaw during WWII, particularly the inhuman conditions and treatment of Jews in the ghetto. I especially liked this edition because it included additional resources: excerpts of the diary of the German officer that aided Szpilman, and an afterward by Wolf Biermann. 5/5 stars!